Real Texans: Margaret Byfield

When I move to Texas, it is just night and day,

because we're in a state where we own the land.

And so we don't have that federal influence

that controls literally every decision you make,

which is people in the West, that's how they're required to live,

because they're under that federal thumb.

So it's night and day, and it's one of the reasons why

it's so important for Texans to understand what we have here.

And to recognize the things that are eroding our property rights.

Ready to roll?

Yep.

All right.

Real Texans.

Why should this matter to real Texans?

Welcome to this edition of Real Texans talking to folks

or trying to make the lone star state even better.

It's nice to be sitting down with Margaret Byfield

of American Stewards of Liberty.

You're the executive director of this national group

that actually happens to be based in the lone star state.

It's nice to be with you.

Thank you.

It's great to be here.

OK.

So is this fair to say that American Stewards of Liberty focuses

on property rights, on government overreach, on imminent domain?

Is that kind of a good summation of what you'll do?

It is.

We don't do a lot of imminent domain issues.

Well, we kind of do.

But we do mainly what we work on are the conflicts

of the federal government.

A lot of times I tell people if they don't know who we are,

and what we do, I say, well, we fight the environmentalists.

And that kind of clarifies it for them.

But our membership are the America's small landowners.

So the people who are growing our food and timber

and mining our resources.

And that's who we support and who supports us.

So it's rural America, but it's a lot of homeowners as well.

Because, and I'm sure we're going to get into this,

the importance of property rights, I think,

is something that people don't really understand

until they have the property taken.

And then you realize how it is absolutely tied to our liberty.

And so it's a very important issue,

and it's one that we have a lot of work on.

Now, in full disclosure, you're not originally from Texas.

But as we like to joke, you got here as fast as you can.

You were raised in rural Nevada,

where your family had waged against you all

a nearly 30-year fight with radical environmentalists.

Tell me about that and how that kind of shaped

what you do today.

Yeah, we purchased Pine Creek Ranch in Nevada

when I was 10 years old.

And in Nevada, is 83% federally owned.

Now, most people don't understand that most of the West

is owned by the federal government completely different

from Texas.

So in Nevada, on our ranch, we ran on 1,100 square miles.

So that seems like a lot of land,

not if you're in rural, rural Texas.

But in Nevada, that's an oversized ranch.

But out of that, we only had 7,000 private deeded acres.

But we owned all the water on that land,

the range improvements, and of course,

had the grazing rights.

But when the federal government owns so much of the land,

they have so much control over your business.

And we just, we purchased the ranch at a time

when the environmental movement was really energized

and trying to lock up the West

and make it a very big effort to do that.

And the federal agencies were really working alongside them

to help accomplish that.

So we purchased the ranch, the Forest Service,

the U.S. Forest Service filed an application

for all of our water rights, so filed over our water rights

so that if we defaulted, they would be next in line to get them.

And then they used their grazing regulations

to run us off the land.

So it was a real setup.

And we fought them, and there's so much that happened

in that case, and we could have a whole day session on that one.

But we fought them for about 13 years.

And then finally, my parents said, we're done.

I mean, we went through three administrative appeals processes.

And we'd win them, but you really won't win anything

because they'd come back and do the same thing to you the next year

and reduce your cattle numbers, keep you from being able

to really operate the ranch the way it should be operated.

So in 1991, they said, we're done fighting with them.

We're just going to go to court

and we're going to find out what do we own and what don't we own.

So they filed the very first federal land

grazing takings case in America

against the Forest Service in the BLM.

And an interesting part of that story, if you, you know,

we've been talking a lot about law fair,

watching what President Trump has had to go through.

But four months after we filed that case,

so in other words, mom and dad said, we're done fighting with you.

We're going to give it to the courts, let justice decide.

And four months later, the Forest Service came in

and brought two criminal charges against my dad

for things that were already at issue

that we had raised in the takings case.

So there were already before the court

and got him before a jury trial in Las Vegas.

And he was sent into six months of house arrest.

And that was all about pressuring him

to drop that takings case.

So anyway, that's just like one little nugget of,

you know, what the family went through

to try and fight this battle.

But the takings case, we actually ended up in court 27 years.

We wanted at the claims court level

and the court awarded us $14.4 million.

And then that was appealed to the DC Circuit.

And our case got before three Eastern judges,

which is kind of how I look at it is,

they have no concept of the federal national issues.

You don't need this much wind out here.

No, and the federal national issues are very complex.

So it's hard, and I think it's hard for Texans

to kind of wrap their braid around the whole system.

And I just think those three Eastern judges

thought it's easier to decide with the government

than to try to figure this out.

So they kicked our case out.

So we actually ended up, after all that time,

never being compensated, obviously never winning the case

and ultimately losing the ranch.

So that's what I kept my teeth on.

That's what gave me the heart for property rights issues.

And when I moved to Texas, it is just night and day

because we're in a state where we own the land.

And so we don't have that federal influence

that controls literally every decision you make,

which is people in the West, that's how they're required

to live because they're under that federal thumb.

So it's night and day, and it's one of the reasons why

it's so important for Texans to understand what we have here.

And to recognize the things that are eroding our property

rights and moving us into that federalized position

that the Western states are in, we don't wanna go there.

You're the story of your family.

What one it screams out, the process is the punishment.

They will write wrong whether you win at the end or not.

You're going to lose because your tax dollars

and my tax dollars and your neighbor's tax dollars

were all being used to fight you

while you were having to defend yourself.

And the idea of you can win and then lose

because some judge somewhere else just decides,

yeah, it's just, it's too complicated.

I have a tea time, I've gotta get to the club,

I've got, you know, something else I wanna do,

I don't wanna make an enemy.

You know, that's the end thesis

of how a republic was supposed to be about.

Exactly, exactly.

This is supposed to be a nation that was founded

by the people for the people.

And that's why property rights are so important.

And this is the thing that I think people don't understand.

When you ask them, what's the most important right

out of our bill of rights?

Is it freedom of speech?

A lot of people, when I say this in the audience,

they'll say, our gun rights and I'll remind them

a gun right is a property right.

So if we go back into history and we really look

at what our founders did,

they were absolutely determined to make sure

the land was owned by the people

because whoever owns a land controls the government.

And that's why you see like with the Louisiana purchase,

530 million acres.

And every one of those acres was settled.

A landowner could go out and take appropriate, you know,

60 acres of one area, 640 or 120 and 640 in another area,

depending on what the landscape looked like.

And how much land you needed to make an economic unit

to support a family.

And you would claim that and that became your private property.

Well, that was the model that our founders

wanted the entire nation to be settled under.

But when we get to the West,

that's when they decided, no,

we're going to retain the federal estate.

And so that's why you'll hear the Western states say,

we did not come in to the union on equal footing

because they were not allowed to own their land.

But that's where you have the divide.

That's where our nation stopped settling the nation

in the manner that our founders had intended.

And they understood so well that whoever owned the land

controlled the government.

And you know, going through our battle,

my dad said something that I think

that has always stuck with me that makes so much sense.

He understood it and he said that we either have

the right to own property or we are property.

And going through our experience, boy,

we began to understand what that really looked like.

Now, the good thing that came out of your family's

horrible experience was you decided,

I'm not going to let this happen to anyone else.

You started one of the precursor groups

to American Church of River.

Now, American church leaders in around

for what, 15, 16 years,

the kind of two groups that joined together

had both kind of formed independently,

but doing the same kind of things back in their early 90s.

And to tell me a little bit about that bringing together

of those two groups and how that has given you

all a more leverage in fighting for property rights.

Well, with my experience coming from the federal lands,

that's, you know, those issues were obviously

things that we were working on.

My husband was running a property rights organization

here in Texas.

And when we met and then obviously got married,

we decided to merge those two groups together.

His experience here was here in Texas

and really dealing with private land issues.

So between those two disciplines,

we were able to really work together

and cover a lot of the property rights issues

that happen across the nation.

So it's been a great team.

Even if we didn't get married,

it would have been a great team.

But yeah, it's definitely set us up

to be able to take on a lot of big battles.

The, I don't think for a lot of us

when we think of our property rights,

I think the relationship with government, that, you know,

imminent domain is kind of the,

that's the thing that we all think of, right?

Where, you know, government agency comes and says,

I need that part of your property.

I'm going to, and I no longer own it,

the government now owns that property

and I can't go on to anything else.

The bigger threat that we seem to be dealing with

and the threat that you guys have been,

been dealing with, literally from before you started

this effort has been this idea of kind of

the regulatory takings.

And it feels like that that has, you know,

it's been kind of this quiet creep,

this slow movement, taking property in a way

that I still have the cost of the land,

these sort of ownership,

I don't get to enjoy the full benefit of my property.

Is that, is that a correct way to understand

this problem?

Yes, absolutely.

And that's really our biggest threat.

And that's, that really comes through

to the federal regulations,

the over-regulations of land and property.

But it's, it's happening at so many layers,

it's happening at the local government,

it's happening at the state government

and at the federal government.

And these, this idea that we shouldn't be using our land,

it's first off, it's not biblical,

if we want to go down that road,

we could have that conversation, it's not biblical,

but it's pushed by the environmental movement.

So the environmental movement has this viewpoint

that man is a cancer and that using land,

that land should be set aside for nature

and that we are the ones who harmed the earth.

And so, in their grand scheme of it,

we would all live in 15-minute cities

and have little corridors to walk between cities.

And, you know, 30 years ago when this came up,

I would laugh at that.

And now I don't laugh anymore

because I'm seeing it happen.

But there is so much pressure,

it's really driven by people who don't want people

to own the land or people who want the land.

And they are able to use the federal regulations

or the state or the local to drive the small land

on our out of business.

And then they're in position to acquire that right.

And one of these vehicles that I think people need to be very

concerned about is the conservation easement.

So a conservation easement which is sold

as this is a great way to voluntarily preserve your property.

I'll just say it straight out.

It absolutely erodes the property right.

We tell people they have a right

to put a conservation easement on their land.

But once they do, it's no longer a private property

because they no longer control that property.

That conservation easement, what your do is

you're selling the development right at that land

to a land trust or a government entity.

So that's about 40% of the value.

And then you're agreeing to the conservation purpose

for that land.

And then the land trust determines whether or not

that conservation purpose is being carried out.

So you no longer control your property.

You can pay the taxes.

You still have the title.

But now you are under a very restrictive system.

And these are signed in perpetuity, meaning forever.

So there's so many ways that they come after the property.

And there is a grand taking that is happening right now

in America.

And we really fought.

We fought a lot of it that was most visible to people,

which was the 30 by 30 agenda.

We're in the Biden administration.

And that's when they finally came out and kind of said very

clearly what they were planning to do.

And that was to permanently protect 30% of America's lands

in oceans by 2030.

And so that was really the first time.

No, they say protect.

They don't mean protect what they mean is controlled.

Right.

I mean, it's dressed up as, look, I love the idea.

I'm a parking camping.

I love the idea that big bend exists, that all these parks

can go hiking through the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Trail,

all those places, those are wonderful things.

That's not what they're talking about, they're talking

in the 30, 30 plan, right?

No.

And I think there's room for things like that,

areas that are set aside so people can get out

and see the country.

And there's room for that.

The issue is what they were trying to do

is lock the land up permanently, meaning no mining, no hunting.

I mean, this is part of it, no recreation on it,

no grazing, no timber.

And they were not focused on the federal lands.

So the federal lands, the lands that they already owned,

which was about 28% of the nation, they weren't focused

on those, what they were focused on was,

were the private land states, what they were after

was getting the private land under federal control.

Because just as we understand, the people have liberty

because we own our property, they understand

the only way they can control us is if they own our property.

So that's why the real agenda was focused

on the private land state.

So we saw, like we saw an effort here in Texas

to create, I think it was $50 billion,

I have to remember the number on that,

but a very large sum of money that they were going to take

out of our rainy day fund and put into a land

and water conservation fund to go out

and allow the state to buy up all these conservation easements

on private property.

And we fought that, we got that stopped.

But those are the kind of agendas

that are just eroding it.

And they are being pushed from this idea

that we shouldn't own our land.

And so that's, in the bigger picture,

that's the real threat that we are facing

on so many fronts here in Texas.

You guys are currently fighting here in Texas.

This is the kind of insidious kind of taking that drive me crazy.

Because on the one hand, you can kind of say,

oh, this sounds like a good idea

until you start seeing the impact.

And that's this massive $33 billion statewide plan

dealing with transmission power lines.

And you know, it feels like, oh, gosh, yeah,

we all want more power.

But that's not really what we're talking about, is it?

No, we are talking about the reason for this project.

So what they're doing is the state is planning

to permit or build three major, huge extra high voltage

transmission lines from the east side of Texas

into the Permian Basin because the Permian Basin needs more power.

Now, that's the first reason we should question,

is this a good idea?

Because they are going to cross linearly,

like from point A to point B, 4,000 miles of Texas land.

So these are easements across people's private property,

200 wide foot easement, not your normal transmission

easement.

These are 130 to 160 feet tall.

They can get up to about 215.

So we're talking 15 story high transmissions.

Going through the middle of the hill country,

our beautiful hill country.

And the reason for protecting the nature right here.

Exactly.

The reason for these lines is because the Permian Basin

needs more energy.

Now, think about that.

And what are our members who really brought this to our attention

said, this is akin to Holland Water to the sea.

The Permian Basin sits on one of the greatest oil

and gas fields in the world.

So why isn't the Texas policy focused

on how do we get more local generation there,

instead of tearing up the land of thousands of land

owners in Texas and literally taking it

for a transmission line?

This whole project makes no sense.

And what we would like to see is we

would like to see Governor Abbott, the Lieutenant Governor,

come out and just take a step back

before we could demo all this private property.

And let's study this a little bit more.

I know that Texas Public Policy Foundation

has been putting out some really good, credible information

on reasons why we should be questioning

if this is the right path.

And even they will say, we need more electrical generation.

That's not the issue, but this is certainly

not the right solution to it.

Well, this is kind of a worse solution

to a created problem of reliance on unreliable energy.

So now it's kind of the bad idea creates more bad ideas

that create more bad ideas.

And that if we were, if we would stop relying

on unreliable energy generation

and have reliable energy generation,

suddenly you wouldn't need, need, in quotes, yeah.

You wouldn't need this massive transmission line scheme

that's being proposed.

Well, and you nailed it.

This line is really not about delivery energy

from the east to the west.

It is a way to hook up the overbuilt

unreliable wind and solar port

that we have been spending money on in this state

instead of increasing our oil and gas generation

the reliable energy sources.

And this is a really interesting figure.

And we're coming up on, as we do this interview,

StarMurie that happened five years ago,

our five year anniversary.

Well, when you look at the numbers,

what you find out is that I think we put

like $50 billion into making our grid system more durable

so we don't go through that again.

And most of that money has gone into battery storage

and solar and wind.

Very little, I think it's like 3%

into oil and gas reliable energy.

So all we have done is increased our durability

during the summer months.

But those things do not work in the winter months,

especially if we have like a long duration of overcast days

and the windmills are frozen, you know,

they do not help us.

So in that same five year time frame,

though we've seen Texas explode, right?

We've had a population increase.

Our demand for energy in Texas has increased by 20%

since Storm Yuri.

And we have not met that with reliable energy.

So we are more vulnerable today than we were with StarMurie.

And these building new transmission lines

isn't going to help us, you know,

taking energy from one place to another.

It isn't going to help us.

What we need is local generation sources

that can produce reliable energies

so that we're not left in the cold.

If folks want to get more engaged

with protecting property rights,

how can they get involved with your work?

Well, first place to go is our website.

So it's AmericanStuards.us.

And you can go to that website

and you'll see all the different interesting issues

that we're working on.

And you can sign up.

We have a newsletter.

That's free so you can dip your toe in

to see if you like what we do.

And, but just join in us and help it

as fight these battles.

Outstanding.

Well, Margaret Bifold, thank you so much for your time today.

And thank you for work and defending property rights.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us in this edition of Real Texans.